A Love Story.
Oliver Wood.
I despised Oliver Wood more than any other student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He was arrogant, annoying, obnoxious, revolting, and completely disgusting. Worst of all, he was my partner for double Potions.
"You're doing it wrong!" I told Oliver as he was stirring the Draught of the Living Dead potion Snape assigned everyone. Oliver was stirring clockwise instead of counterclockwise. His mistake was turning the potion a wonky shade of pink when it was supposed to be a light shade of lilac. Frustrated, I shoved Oliver aside and furiously started to stir counterclockwise hoping to fix his mistake.
Much to my dismay, Snape chose this exact moment to tell the class to stop. He walked around the classroom commenting the dozen paired students and their potions. No one achieved the clear appearance as the book said, but one or two had managed a pale grey.
Snape arrived at the table Oliver and I worked on. He glanced down at our pink potion and scowled.
"Miss James and Mr. Wood, what an incompetent pair. I can't see how either of you got an Outstanding on your O.W.L.s," he sneered. "No matter, you all are to bottle your potion"--he grimaced at a Hufflepuff's tar-like potion--"and leave it on my desk."
"I'll get it," I said as I grabbed a flask and started to fill it with the pink liquid.
"Do you think I'm incapable of performing such a task?" Oliver asked.
"No, I just don't trust you." I put a cork in the flask and started towards Snape's desk.
"And why is that?" Oliver questioned, following me.
"I don't like you very much." I placed the flask on Snape's desk and began to walk back to the table.
"Why don't you like me?" He seemed to be asking himself more than asking me.
"Because you are incredibly annoying." We reached the table and started to put away my copy of Advanced Potion Making.
"When am I annoying?" He packed his books away as well.
"RIGHT NOW!" I screamed at him. He was, after all, terribly annoying.
The bell rang as I stormed out of the dungeon. Several people watched with frightened faces, others looked amused. Oliver, however, stood looking completely dumbstruck.
I headed to the Great Hall for lunch, thankful that the morning has passed. Once in the large room, I went straight to the Gryffindor table and sat beside my best friend Morgan.
"He's dreadful," I sighed as loaded my plate with food.
"Snape?" Morgan asked while loading her plate with sandwiches.
"Oliver Wood," I stated glancing at Oliver, who was surrounded by the entire Gryffindor Quidditch team and Lee Jordan.
Morgan shrugged, mouth full of sandwich, "I ahways thought he was kindah coot."
A piece of bread shot out of my mouth and landed in front of a second year down the table as I laughed. Morgan thought he was cute. That was very odd.
"Oh come on Alyssa, he's not that bad. And he is very cute." She stared dreamily Wood.
"He's horrible and stupid! I'm going to fail Potions with him as a partner," I whined. "Why couldn't I have got stuck with Cedric Diggory?"
"He's gorgeous!" Morgan squealed causing quite a few Ravenclaw's to look our way. She merely smiled and waved.
"I agree. He is." I smiled at Morgan and gathered my things; lunch was almost over. "See you in Binns's class," I told Morgan as I headed off towards Professor Flitwick's classroom for Charms.
"Today we will be working on nonverbal spells. We'll be doing the easy charms since it's hard without pronouncing the incantation. Now, you'll be levitating those cushions"--he pointed to a pile of violet cushions in the corner--"into these boxes." He motioned to a row of boxes on the wall behind him. "Get to it."
I walked over to the pile of cushions and patiently waited for the crowd to clear. As I waited, I thought about what Morgan said: Oliver wasn't that bad. She could be right, but she was terribly wrong from my point of view. I've disliked Oliver ever since my first day here at Hogwarts.
"Do you mind if I join you?" a small, brown-haired boy asked me. He had just opened the sliding door to my compartment. Apparently all others were full.
"Not at all." I smiled and picked up my luggage from the seat across from me and placed it in the rack above my head.
"I'm Oliver Wood," he said in a strong Scottish accent while sticking out his hand for me to shake.
"Alyssa James," I shook it and smiled. He returned it.
"So, are you excited?" he asked.
"Very. And nervous too."
"What house do you think you'll get?"
"I don't know," I answered. "My mother was a Ravenclaw but my father was a Gryffindor."
"Both of my parents were in Gryffindor," he said matter-of-factly, "so I'll be a Gryffindor too."
The door slid open again to reveal an elderly women pushing a tray of sweets. "Anything from the trolley, dears?"
I got up, followed by Oliver, and looked over the trolley. "Two Pumpkin Pasties please." The lady handed me the sweets after I paid her. Oliver bought a few Cauldron Cakes and some Bertie Bott's.
"I love Bertie Bott's. I have almost every card," he boasted.
"I think they're nasty."
"Yea, well, you're ugly!" he snapped back.
Completely offended by what the small Scottish boy said, I did the only thing I could think off: I hexed him. I turned his nose a dark purple. He gasped, shocked, and hexed me back. Instead of a purple nose, he made my ears swell.
I screamed as if someone had used an Unforgivable Curse on me. People came running to our compartment to see what was going on. A few Prefects came and got rid of my swollen ears and Oliver's purple nose, separating us after we looked normal again.
"Oof." I was pulled from my thoughts by a body crashing into my own. Looking up, I saw a pair of grey eyes staring into my green ones. The owner of those beautiful eyes was none other than Cedric Diggory.
"I am so sorry. I went for the cushion and someone pushed me. I didn't mean to bump into you. Sorry." He picked up two cushions and handed me one.
"It's okay, really. Thanks for the pillow."
"You're Alyssa James, Gryffindor, right?" he asked while walking toward his desk.
I nodded while following him to his desk; my own was only a few feet away. "And you're Cedric Diggory, Hufflepuff's Quidditch captain and Seeker, no?"
"Yea," he answered sounding slightly surprised. I looked up and found him smiling. Smiling in return, I turned and started to walk over to my desk to practice the much-hated nonverbal spells.
"Hey, uh," Cedric said, making me pause and turn to face him once more. "Do you want to, er, practice together?"
Blushing slightly, I agreed. I set my cushion down in front of me, took my place beside Cedric, and started trying to make it fly across the room into its box.
One hour, countless flirty comments, and quite a few mumbled incantations later Cedric asked to walk with me to Herbology. He had it as well.
"So," Cedric started as we walked out the large oak doors of the Entrance Hall into the cool, wet October weather. "Do you have any plans for Hogsmeade next weekend?"
I had completely forgotten that the first Hogsmeade trip of the school year was next weekend. Of course I had no plans whatsoever expect to stick to Morgan. "Nope."
"Do you want to spend it with me?" He glanced in my direction. I could see a faint trace of red in his cheeks.
I smiled, "I'd love to."
He looked at me, smiling widely, as we walked into greenhouse four and settled ourselves next to Lee Jordan and the Weasley twins. Professor Sprout walked in carrying a menacing looking plant signaling the start of the lesson.
"He asked you to Hogsmeade!?" Morgan squealed at dinner later. I had just told her about Cedric.
"Yes," I blushed looking over at the Hufflepuff table and found Cedric looking back. He smiled, which I returned, and turned back to talking to the Hufflepuff Quidditch team.
"What am I supposed to do?" she asked looking at the handsome Hufflepuff too. She then turned back to me and gave me a puppy-dog pout.
"Shop with Angelina or Alicia," I suggested. Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, and Katie Bell were in our dormitory. We all were friends, but I would chose Morgan over the others any day.
She grumbled, "Fine." She then paused, a smirk worthy of Marcus Flint played across her lips. "Maybe I can flirt with Mr. Wood. Since, of course, you have no liking for him whatsoever."
I made gagging motions when she said this. Morgan laughed, threw some corn at me, and kept eating.